In general, automatic control and a parking-fee settlement method at a parking lot entrance are main concerns in a conventional parking management system. Recently, in order to run a parking lot entrance without a person and automate it, a method has been developed which performs management centered on parking-fee settlement using a parking-pass dispensing machine or a number-plate image recognition machine and radio frequency (RF) communication (limited to vehicles of regular parking members), installs a vehicle detection device for recognizing occupation of parking stalls in parking sections to show an available parking section at the entrance, and thus can recognize available parking capacity and available parking positions.
In addition, an apparatus that is installed in a passage in a building and pre-settles a parking fee has been developed and is being partially used for the sake of quick drive-out exit, but in most cases a parking manager calculates a parking fee in person.
The above-mentioned conventional methods check and provide the positions and number of available parking stalls as well as a parking time period and the parking fee at the entrance, thus actually centering on fee settlement and parking capacity check. Therefore, the conventional methods can be considered as systems for a parking lot manager rather than for a vehicle driver.
Since a vehicle detection device must be installed in each parking stall to check available parking capacity, the methods necessitate excessive cost. In addition, the methods sense whether or not a vehicle exists only in a parking stall, and thus cannot ensure sensing reliability when a parking stall sensor malfunctions or is in an abnormal state. Therefore, when a driver drives to a designated parking stall, cases frequently happen where he/she has to drive to another parking stall because another vehicle has already been parked in the parking stall.
Furthermore, a driver may urgently park his/her vehicle in a parking lot of a building, leave to take care of business, and return to the parking lot to drive-out exit his/her vehicle. In this case, the driver may neither remember the parking position exactly, i.e., a floor number and a section, nor find his/her vehicle with ease.
Korean Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-0018905 Parking Place Confirmation System, which is a preceding document, suggests a system for checking a parking position. According to the system, when an ultrasonic sensor installed for checking whether or not a vehicle is parked transfers information on the same to a controller, previously recorded speech is output through a voice module having a built-in speaker after a predetermined time period. Thus, a driver who has got out of his/her vehicle can hear the speech and recognize the parking position of the vehicle.
However, according to the preceding document, when a driver parks his/her vehicle, the system checks whether or not the vehicle is parked using an ultrasonic sensor and after a predetermined time period, informs the driver the parking position using a speaker at the time the driver gets out of his/her vehicle door. Thus, the driver has to remember the parking position even after a considerable time period. In addition, when several vehicles enter parking cells at a time, it is difficult to check exits of drivers according to the technology suggested in the preceding document, thus remarkably deteriorating accuracy.